Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Take my hand: Volare

Summer is here and I am happily greening my backyard... I have the matoes and the okies.. And japanese eggplants and cauliflowers lined up. Three trips to Home Depot has done wonders for my soul! Anish is ignoring me firmly. Because of course an upshot of this has also been no breakfast this saturday morning.. and it is now nearing noon. The Raha's it would seem is coming to our rescue. I observed their car pulling in and Seema emerging with IHOP plastic bags.. Ah, pancakes! I surmised happily. Pancakes dripping with butter and maple syrup. Ummmmm... good. Anish complained, huh? Seema is smugly smiling at me. "Of course he did and I have left standing instruction that he can holler whenever you are in these moods of yours.." Are you telling me that you never slip? Because Giri has never called me for rescue. Seema says, "He calls you for lunches in which I am not invited!" I screw up my eyebrows. What are you talking about? We work at the same company.. of course we share the cafeteria grub! You are always welcome to it. "No, I meant the other time, when you guys had the burrito on the beach." I stood looking at her speechless. Good grief! Giri emerged from the sidelines. I made a face at everybody and sought refuge amongst the greens! I couldn't even think of a good exit line! Giri followed me there and commented that I am looking good in my gardening gear.. I've never gotten a compliment from him in my life! I felt pleased, and suddenly self concious in my shorts and flip-flops. I looked away from him frantically because my red face had become a top priority to conceal.

After the pancake feast, we decided to go catch a movie. Anish and Seema love horror flicks. Giri is neutral and I am dead against. We were gathered at the Century 21 but couldn't reach a concensus. After some back and forth, Anish suggested that we each go see whatever we like. We could meet outside later for the ice-cream! What!!! Guess what, Seema agreed! I and Giri looked from one to the other. Two can play this game baby! I grabbed Giri and headed toward one of the theaters. I sat there not enjoying the movie at all. How could Anish make this stupid suggestion! And Seema it seemed to me at that moment, was always agreeing with Anish. After a while I felt G whisper, "lets go out"... we did. But I was brooding mostly... Mind, I am NOT suspecting them of any foul play whatsoever. It was just plain annoying. But I was worked up and didn't feel a thing when Giri linked his hands with mine... at 4:00, we arrived back at the theater to pick A & S up.. I didn't look at Anish, but I had to look at Seema with a smile. What I saw there gave me a shock. Her eyes held an understanding that was a revelation. Seema had noticed whatever it was, or was not, there, between me and Giri. His suddenly switching jobs could've come across as odd .. She'd been married for less than a year to this guy.. their alliance had been arranged by their families. It has probably been challenging for her to accept, to understand, to move on. Even while I was being friends with her, I'd pretended with her, I'd been less than honest... and she had had to let it go...

I called Seema and we have come to lunch together, just the two of us, this Sunday afternoon. I've told her everything I could about my relationship with Giri... about our friendship, about our fallout and about my current feelings of affection for both of them. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I still feel attracted to G. I just couldn't.

Perhaps it did not matter as long as there was no substance to it.... What that means is that it does not matter when infidelity is in your mind. It means that it does not matter if you watch pornography. Stupidly, it suddenly mattered if you "did" it. I agree, the logic of it is warped, as warped goes.